Sex Addiction in women can look different from sex addiction in men. What is shared in common is the out-of-control risk taking behavior that is common to all addictions. It is also not unusual for people recovering from one addiction, say, alcoholism or drug addiction, to substitute their need to numb feelings with sex. This could be porn, soliciting sex in massage parlors or sexual encounters with colleagues at work, friends or even strangers.
Vera is a 49 year old woman who has struggled with alcoholism for several years. After a DUI, Vera decided that she needed to quit. She has been sober for the last 3 yers. Vera attends at least three AA meetings a week, meets with her sponsor regularly and attends therapy to resolve childhood issues. Since becoming sober, Vera’s life has changed completely. She is doing well ion her career, has lots of friends and her relationship with her husband has improved tremendously. Vera’s therapist, who she has been seeing before she quit drinking is delighted at how hard Vera has worked and how well she is doing.
However, there is one thing that Vera has neglected disclosing to her therapist. Vera does not think it is particularly important because the main focus of their work has been about being sober and more recently, resolving and healing from her childhood trauma.
For the last 6-8 months, Vera has begun getting together with some of the male members of the fellowship. It began innocently enough. Discussions after the meeting, riding to meetings together, to dinner after meeting to sitting in the parking lot discussing AA principles and sharing stories of their drinking days. But Vera has also begun to enjoy the occasional sexual encounters that sometimes these talks lead to. “Its just fooling around”, she justifies to herself. Sobriety is not easy and I am just rewarding myself a little bit. Its not really sex and so she is not really cheating on her husband. What does he do to support her after all? She has repeatedly asked him to attend Al-Anon meetings or even AA meetings with her but he dismisses the idea and would rather watch football at home.
Vera only enjoys the sexual encounters but there is a certain high that she experiences when men approach her. She knows that they don’t really want to “talk” AA. She knows whats really on their mind. It makes her feel powerful. She has even made up this game in her mind. When a new member joins, Vera sets a timeframe by which he will approach her — 10 days, two weeks— and when he does, she wins. Its a silly game, its all in her head and she knows it but it gives her a feeling of power that she has never experienced before and she thoroughly enjoys it.
Lately, Vera has noticed that she is often distracted at work, when she is driving or at home as she plots and plans how to get the next guy to approach her.
Vera has thought of telling her therapist, but then brushed the thought aside. She is not drinking, she is working the program, doing all the things that her therapist recommends. And also, her therapist might judge her. She may think that Vera is loose and promiscuous. She may even suggest that Vera is cheating on her husband— which is of course ridiculous, right?
What Vera is unaware of or ignoring is that in many ways the process feels just like when she was drinking— the planning, the distraction, the excitement, the momentary buzz followed by guilt and doubt. In fact, Vera is just substituting one addictive substance for another.
There may be many reasons why Vera chooses not to disclose this to her therapist, but the most important point is that Vera already knows that her behavior is troubling in more ways than one. In disclosing to her therapist, she will then have to confront the disturbing patterns and similarities of this behavior with those of her drinking days. Vera is just not ready.
About Rochna:
Rochna Hazra is trained in Marriage and Family Therapy at Virginia Tech. She includes the emotional, psychological, spiritual and family aspects of a person in her work. Rochna has been trained by Dr. Pat Carnes, a pioneer in the field of Sex Addiction.
Rochna is also a Certified Advanced Relapse Prevention Specialist and trained in Mindfulness-based Therapy and Relapse Prevention.
Originally from India, she combines the Eastern traditions of mindfulness, non-judgment and a holistic approach to healing with the Western approach of realism and solution-focused action.
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